While many US presidents had established careers in politics well before they came to the White House, some held other roles you might not expect.
From farmers and teachers to military and law careers, the résumés of US presidents might be less standard than you’d think.
Abraham Lincoln delivered mail in New Salem, Illinois, and John F. Kennedy reported as a foreign correspondent for Hearst Newspapers.
Take a look at the jobs these 21 US presidents had before they were in office.
John Adams
John Adams worked as a diplomat in France, the Netherlands, and Great Britain between 1778 and 1788.
However, PBS reported, “His independent, unbending temperament was not ideal for diplomacy, and his diplomatic triumphs were offset by feelings of alienation.”
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren served two terms in the New York State Senate and was elected New York attorney general in 1815.
During his terms, he “proved himself to be an adept politician, using political appointments and financial contributions to secure votes, and effectively establishing what would prove to be the foundations of the modern political machine,” as reported by Biography.com.
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was appointed postmaster of New Salem, Illinois, in 1833 and served until 1836.
The mail arrived in New Salem once a week, and if someone didn’t collect it from the post office, Lincoln would hand-deliver it to them, per USPS.
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson started working as a tailor in Greeneville, Tennessee, when he was just 17 years old.
“When I was a tailor, I always made a close fit, and was always punctual to my customers, and did good work,” Johnson said, according to the National Park Service.
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland was sheriff of Erie County, New York, from 1871 to 1873, a role that required him to oversee executions. He is understood to have personally conducted hangings during his two-year term.
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt became a rancher after a hunting trip to North Dakota’s Badlands in 1883.
He was so taken by the beauty of the area and its opportunities that he bought a ranch and cattle.
William Taft
William Taft was appointed head of the Philippine Commission by President McKinley in 1900.
Taft, his wife, and their three children lived in Southeast Asia for three years, during which he improved the local Filipino economy, according to Biography.com.
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson became the president of Princeton University in 1902 and held the position until 1910.
The university’s public policy college, which had been renamed after the president in 1948, had Wilson’s name removed in June 2020.
“We have taken this extraordinary step because we believe that Wilson’s racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school whose scholars, students, and alumni must be firmly committed to combating the scourge of racism in all its forms,” the board said.
Warren Harding
Warren Harding was a newspaper editor in Marion, Ohio.
Harding and two friends purchased the failing Marion Star for $300 in 1884.
He turned the near-defunct paper into a successful publication. According to the Marion Star, “He said once someone asked him, ‘Why newspapering?’ and he said, ‘It combines my two passions, writing and the opportunity to affect change.'”
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1918 and served during the Boston Police Strike.
Coolidge sent a telegram to union leader Samuel Gompers that said, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.”
His response to the strike made him famous across the country and led to his selection as Warren Harding’s vice-presidential candidate.
Herbert Hoover
Hoover worked as a mining engineer in China from 1899 to 1902, working to “enhance the profitability of their mines,” according to the National Archives.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a lawyer in New York City at a law firm called Carter Ledyard and Milburn from 1907 to 1911.
However, Roosevelt disliked the profession and didn’t even graduate from law school at Columbia University; he left after he passed the bar in 1907, as reported by the Miller Center.
Harry Truman
Harry Truman operated his family farm in Grandview, Missouri, for 11 years.
According to the National Archives, Truman was working a bank job in Kansas City when his father asked him to help manage the family farm owned by his widowed grandmother.
“It was on the farm that Harry got his common sense. He didn’t get it in town,” his mother, Martha Truman, said of her son.
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower was the supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II.
During that time, he “developed diplomatic skills that he would later employ as America’s 34th president,” wrote History.com.
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy was a journalist for Hearst Newspapers. He covered World War II news during the summer of 1945.
As a foreign correspondent, Kennedy attended the first United Nations meeting, the Potsdam Conference, and other key meetings following the end of World War II.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson was a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, when he was just 20 years old in 1928.
For a year, he taught Mexican-American students who were so poor he saw them “going through a garbage pile, shaking the coffee grounds from the grapefruit rinds and sucking the rinds for the juice that was left,” NPR reported.
He used part of his salary to buy softball equipment for students.
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter managed his family’s peanut farm and warehouse in Plains, Georgia, after his father died in 1953. When he became president, he put his peanut farm in a blind trust to prevent conflicts of interest, the Washington Post reported.
However, due in part to mismanagement, the peanut business was $1 million in debt by the time Carter left office.
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan hosted General Electric Theater for eight years, between 1954 and 1962. During his time working for General Electric, his politics shifted from a “liberal anticommunist” to “so far to the right that the company felt it had to drop him as a spokesman,” as reported by Slate.
George H.W. Bush
Bush co-founded an oil drilling company, Zapata Petroleum Corporation, in 1953. The company worked with international offshore drilling, having a contract with Shell in Kuwait, The National reported.
Barack Obama
Barack Obama worked as a civil rights lawyer at the Chicago law firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland for four years.
At the firm, he focused on clients dealing with “voting rights matters and wrongful terminations,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
Donald Trump
Before the presidency, Donald Trump made a name for himself in the media as a real estate and business mogul, hosting the reality TV show “The Apprentice” from 2004 to 2015, and serving as a guest commentator on “Fox & Friends” from 2011 to 2015.
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